An early night and a day in the library yet again .
My essay is in though, and I’m pleased.
This week is another mixture of work, college and village
Two nights at work, college all day tomorrow with a recorded counselling skills practice to film and send in, and on Saturday it’s one of the/last set pieces for the TCA this year and that’s the Christmas Fayre
My Mr Bumble Victorian outfit had been ordered a while ago and should be delivered by Wednesday and Bridget hits that we have a snow machine ordered !!! Which should be fun.
A couple of the TCA lads ( lads!!! Older than me)
Climbed up the village green trees to hang fairly lights in preparation
Clever, convoluted , witty, and challenging Grayson Perry proved to be a talented stand up comedian ,albeit one dressed as a clown crossed with Violet Elizabeth Bott.
He also enjoyed singing several home grown songs and the object of his attention was how we see ourselves , our identity, a subject I’m sure his wife helped him with, her being a psychologist of some note.
Perry is a trouper and an unapologetic storyteller
Who loved to call himself what he is, a national Treasure
An interesting evening all told, even though Colin and I had to hurry a rather impressive meal at the Blackburn’s Arms beforehand.
I got home around 11.30 pm and contemplated popping in to affable despot Jason’s daughter Eve’s 18th down in Dyserth.
It was too late of course to go, I’m on a long day in the morning , and I had called around yesterday to give Eve her gift and card, getting a lovely hug in return.
I got into work today to find the hospice short staffed.
A support worker and staff nurse kindly transferred from our satellite unit to help and I allocated them to half of the patients with one of my own support workers when I took the other half helped by a student nurse.
The student nurse was nervous, very young but bright
She impressed me from the start when I asked her what was our priorities as soon as we hit the floor
Check on my patients she said with a smile.
It was a pleasure working alongside a young woman so open to learning
She shadowed me when I updated tearful families on changes of their relatives care and picked up on my use of language and humour when relating to another complicated patient.
On our break she asked me what my experience was in nursing and
When she heard I was originally a psychiatric nurse she nodded and laughed
“ I thought you were something like that”
By the end of the shift , she had planned my handover to another trained nurse and had agreed to implement it and I was leaving I overheard her explaining to some relatives an excellent précis of change of care plans with confidence and thought
And I thought how nice it was to have junior nurses of such promise on the shop floor
When I was a charge nurse, she was the kind of nurse I used to headhunt for my spinal injury ward.
I got to the satellite library just after nine and left it at 2pm
I left it because it got too noisy, travelling 12 miles west to my usual ( and very quiet ) Uni library along the coast.
Using a well heeled library in a rough part of north wales has been an eye opener for sure.
Apart from being noisy, it was a lesson in kids who probably need mountains of support and from what I could experience from my computer chair , generally got it.
I listened from time to time, to the 1:1 guidance given to one girl with serious anxiety needs with pure admiration for the teacher/ aide, then watched as two library staff diffused the anger of a teenage boy who stormed about the facility swearing he was going to head butt some kid downstairs who had dissed him.
The activity was all too much for me.
And by 2 pm I asked the main librarian if he could find a quiet corner
He shrugged and said no he was sorry
“ I’ve never been in such a noisy library” I told him, not unkindly
But he shrugged
“ What do you expect this is a FE college?” he said
and his resignation felt raw.
I left feeling somewhat stressed which made me feel awkward
Give me a medical emergency or distraught relatives , life is a breeze
Give me an unfinished essay on evidence based practice
And I’m a mess.
And so , I drove to the quiet library and in three hours finished the essay and listed the references.
I had a massive headache on the way home
Which was calmed by an ice cold Diet Coke and the above song gently playing on the car CD
Devipravaha is incredibly soothing to the non academic soul.
This morning I took TCH * to the dentist . We have a nice barter going on.
Dog sitting for car transport
It’s a good deal.
This afternoon I’ve written a quarter of my essay and mybib -ed the references. The library staff at the Rhyl satellite campus were far too loud but didn’t take exception at me asking them to keep it down
I think they thought I was a visiting member of staff.
I had a cheese toastie for lunch and sat with a group of 16 year olds who were merrily slapping each other in the faces and filming it for a laugh.
I bought some sushi for tea and fresh flowers from a struggling florist, a shop I also bought a single white cyclamen from, which I intend to give the eldest Randa girl who is 18 on Saturday along side a trendy girl clothing website voucher
It only feels like yesterday we were disembowelling pumpkins, blowing duck eggs and back combing William until he looked like Tina Turner.
Speaking of birthdays, it’s my nephew Leo’s today
We are off the London in the New Year to see a show, that’s his gift but I’ve sent him a dvd of Oppenheimer too…and sang him a recording of Happy Birthday , sent in messenger
He’s now in his early twenties….and was non plussed with the singing
